Tuesday, November 4, 2014

The Post Bender

The Post Bender is the perfect iced coffee drink for the morning after a night of excess. Fresh ginger is well known for its restorative influence on a queasy stomach and its ability to jumpstart circulation, so including it in a coffee drink for the morning after a night of excess is bound to help. Add a little molasses for a natural sugar boost and some deep, dark porter and you might well be on your way to recovery.



From the stalls of Asia to the street markets of France and the outdoor grills of Portugal and Peru, and just a few places in between, I’ve eaten a lot freshly prepared, deliciously seasoned local food in my life. I’ve spoken before of buying queso de mano from a little guy walking between cars in rush hour traffic in Venezuela and pulling over suddenly to buy curry roti in Trinidad. You can read more about it here, along with a recipe for deep fried bananas. I love street food! I tell you all this by way of introduction to a new cookbook being released this month that celebrates the most mobile of street food with 100 recipes for great dishes from food trucks in the US. It’s called Food Truck Road Trip - A Cookbook and every page, every recipe is a feast for the eyes. It’s going to take me a while but I’d like to try each one!

To research, photograph and write the book, authors Kim Pham, Philip Shen and Terri Phillips packed their bags, loaded up the car and they traveled across the United States to visit the cities and taste the food and hear the stories behind some of the best food trucks around.

But their journey started long before that with a blog called Behind the Food Cart, winner of the Saveur magazine’s Best Culinary Travel Blog in 2013. Their focus has always been the people behind the scenes on the food trucks and each little history and snippet from the cooks and chefs made me think of the recently released movie Chef.  They’d ALL make great movies, from the former attorney who gave up a life of anger and complaints to make gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches to the advertising executive who quit his job to become an executive chef to the plumber who found himself unemployed in the recession and is now serving award winning orange cake from his truck in New York. Seriously. Even without the food, this book is inspirational for the personal stories of dedication, perseverance and love of culture and fine ingredients.

You can buy your own copy of Food Truck Road Trip right now – The recipes are all originals from the actual food truck recipes, not inspired by or adapted from, but shared by the creators for inclusion in the cookbook.

Today I am sharing a cocktail recipe from Hubbub Coffee Company in Philadelphia. Owner Drew Crockett believes that coffee is a way for us to interact with friends and people we have yet to meet and I completely agree with him. I chose this recipe because I love coffee - especially meeting friends to drink it - and I was intrigued by one of its ingredients: porter, a beer with chocolate presence. I did a little research and found one called London Porter here that fit the description perfectly. The recipe is supposed to serve two but I made it in a glass mug and drank the whole thing. Whoops. The leftover syrup keeps nicely in the refrigerator for future drinks.

The Post Bender - from Food Truck Road Trip by Kim Pham, Philip Shen, Terri Phillips. Printed with permission of Page St. Publishing.

Hubbub Coffee Company—Drew Crockett—Philadelphia, Pa

Serves 2  - theoretically :)

Ingredients
For the simple syrup:
1 tablespoon or 22g molasses
1 teaspoon zested ginger (I grated mine on the side with the small holes.)
1 1⁄2 teaspoons (6g) sugar
1⁄4 cup or 60ml water

To assemble:
1⁄2 cup or 118ml freshly brewed coffee, at room temperature
1 (12-oz or 340ml) bottle porter beer (has strong chocolate presence)

Method
To make the simple syrup, combine the molasses, ginger, sugar and water in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over medium-high heat.

Stir to make sure all the ingredients are combined and the sugar is dissolved. Remove from the heat and set aside.

Fill a cocktail shaker halfway with ice. Pour in the coffee.

Then add 2 to 4 tablespoons or 30 to 60ml of the simple syrup and shake vigorously.



Strain into 2 cocktail glasses and top with about 3 ounces (90ml) of porter each.


(I put a little light brown sugar around the rim of my mug and strained all the coffee and two tablespoons of the syrup into it, topping up with about 4 oz or 120ml of porter.)


I’ll definitely be making this one again. Enjoy!










Disclaimer: I received one copy of Food Truck Road Trip - A Cookbook for review purposes. No other compensation was received. This post contains Amazon affiliate links.


Monday, November 3, 2014

Muffin Top Cookies #CookieWeek

It’s the best part of every muffin! For those who like to eat the tops off of muffins and leave the rest, I give you Muffin Top Cookies with semi-sweet chocolate chips and chopped pecans. 


It’s Monday so usually that means muffins are baking at my house but today Muffin Monday and Cookie Week collide in a subtly spectacular fashion with Muffin Top Cookies. All the best of both worlds! 

If you’ve been around here for a while, you know that Cookie Week is the fabulous five-day celebration hosted by Kim of Cravings of a Lunatic and Susan of The Girl in the Little Red Kitchen, who, by the way, also has a commercial kitchen and will ship her delicious cookies right to your door. I participated in the inaugural Cookie Week last year and it was such fun that I begged, "please, pretty please," to be allowed to take part again. It's a great group of bakers – a dozen all told – and we'll be bringing you delicious cookies all week long!

Ingredients for about 2 dozen cookies
3/4 cup or 140g semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup or 60g chopped pecans
1 2/3 cups or 210g flour
3/4 cup or 150g sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup or 120ml milk
1/3 cup or 80ml canola or other light oil
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla

Method
Preheat your oven to 375°F or 190°C and prepare your cookie sheets by lining them with parchment or silicone liners.

Measure out your chocolate chips and pecans then set aside a small handful of each to decorate the tops of the cookies before baking.

In a large mixing bowl, combine your flour, sugar, baking powder, chopped pecans and salt.  In a medium bowl, whisk together your milk, oil, egg and vanilla.

Pour your wet ingredients into your dry ones and stir until just mixed.

Fold in the chocolate chips.


Spoon about 2 level tablespoons of dough, at 2 in or 4cm apart, onto your prepared cookie sheets. I like to use a two-tablespoon scoop, which makes the process so much easier.



Poke a few of the reserved chocolate chips and pieces of pecan into the top of each.



Bake the muffin top cookies for 8 to 10 minutes or until the edges are a light golden brown. Cool for a couple of minutes and then use a spatula to transfer the cookies to a wire rack to finish cooling.



These turn out cakey and very much like a muffin top! Enjoy!






Are you ready for some more warm COOKIES?!
Other blogs participating later this week include:

Sunday, November 2, 2014

Fresh Salmon Carpaccio

This lovely party platter of thinly sliced fresh salmon is something between ceviche and sashimi. The salmon is well dressed with lemon and fennel and shallots but still rather “uncooked” compared to full-on ceviche. The taste is fresh and light, perfect for a holiday buffet or dinner party starter.

It's all about balance.
This week my Sunday Supper group is anticipating the richness of the upcoming holiday season and bringing you some lighter dishes to offset the excess. Our host today is the lovely Kathia from Basic N Delicious. I adore smoked salmon so it’s a special treat during the holidays, but I know the salt content is ridiculously high. This fresh salmon carpaccio is a much healthier option and with the added bright flavors of fennel and shallot, I promise, you won’t miss the salt at all.

Ingredients
For the carpaccio:
About 1 1/2 lbs or 700g very fresh salmon, already skinned (The fish guy can do this for you.)
2 lemons (7 oz or 200g)
3 shallots (about 2 1/2 oz or 70g)
1 small bulb fennel with fronds (almost 4 oz or 110g)
2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/8 cup or 30ml extra-virgin olive oil

To serve:
1 tablespoon capers, drained and dried
Reserved fronds from fennel bulb
Optional: brown or soda bread

Adapted from this recipe on BBC Good Food.

Method
Cut your salmon into three or four pieces and wrap it very tightly in cling film. Freeze for at least an hour to make slicing thinly easier. A very sharp knife is a must so this is a great time to sharpen yours.

While the salmon gets slightly frozen, we can make the dressing.

Cut the root end and the hard tops off the fennel bulb and discard them but keep the green fronds for decorating the salmon later, if desired. Slice the fennel bulb as thinly as possible.



Peel then do likewise with the shallots.



Zest and juice your lemons into a medium sized mixing bowl, discarding any seeds. Add in the salt, sugar and olive oil, then whisk to combine.



Marinate the sliced fennel and shallots in the dressing until the salmon is ready for slicing.



Add a little dressing with fennel and shallots into the bottom of a deep bowl.



Remove one piece of salmon at a time from the freezer so the others don’t thaw out while you slice.

Slice your salmon thinly and lay the pieces on top of the dressing.



Keep slicing and layering with a few drizzles of dressing, fennel and shallots until all of the salmon is sliced. Pour any remaining dressing over the top.



Cover the bowl with cling film and chill in the refrigerator for at least two hours.

After a few hours.


To serve, lay the salmon slices with fennel and shallots out in a single layer on a large platter. Scatter the salmon with the reserved chopped fennel fronds and capers.



The original recipe says to serve with brown or soda bread but I must confess that we sat outside and just ate it straight off the platter with small forks. It was superb.



Enjoy!

Are you looking for some healthy recipes to balance out your holiday excesses? Check out all the great drinks, dishes and desserts we have for you this week!

Drinks
Appetizers or starters
Main Dishes
Side Dishes
Desserts